Polls and User online (Read 397 times)

mucknort

posted: 12/7/2012 at 9:39 AM

2 more options I'd like to see here that are helpful on other forums.

Being able to add a poll question.

Having a doohickey within your posts that shows if you are online at the moment. This option always can be turned off, on the forums I've seen it, if you don't want folks to know whether you are online or not. Helps if you feel like directly commenting/asking a question of someone that has posted.

Polls are alright. Theoretically, at least. Some polls are weird. But the feature can be fun. One issue is that it can also be resource-intensive and drive down the performance, at least for rendering the page that the poll is on.

I'm a little confused by the second request, but basically it sounds like mucky is looking for some way to detect if others are online (or, really, showing that you yourself are online, but you already know that, so I assume this is information for others to see). On message boards I've seen that do this...and based on how http works, being "online at the moment" is an interesting thing just to define... it has a tendency to sort of define (or in our case, change) the culture of the board. In several ways. Pluses and minuses to that one.

Polls will lead to (even) more of the posts that the OP doesn't participate in, and isn't really interested in the answer. Such as...

Do You Think Running is Painful?

What is your Favorite Race Distance?

Do You Untie Your Shoes? ("yes", "no", "sometimes", "don't know")

Who's Running Dallas (visualize the Poll "I Am" vs "I'm Not")

Pooped Your Pants While Running ("Yes", "Not", "Don't Know")

I'm thinking the "online" feature is desired to mimick the FaceBook "online now" and is intended that you could PM or otherwise chat with the person in reatime.

I've done my best to live the right way. I get up every morning and go to work each day. (for now)

xor

posted: 12/7/2012 at 9:41 PMmodified: 12/7/2012 at 9:45 PM

Whatever you do, don't go into the untie-your-shoes thread and note how many pages it is.

Yes, I get that lots of posts are goofy. But they aren't always... some of the ones we encountered on RWOL were pretty reasonable. For me, it wasn't as much about the OP not re-engaging as it was about the OP trying to use survey responses as some kind of scientific data-set. Anyway, the good ones over there fostered discussion. And discussion is good. Would the same discussion have occurred without the poll? I am betting yes, but Mongo not really know. The shoe tying thing is interesting simply because without a poll, it is many pages of people basically saying "yes" and "no". WITHOUT the poll, there isn't much discussion (because, well, it is a yes/no question) and the presence/absence of the poll doesn't affect its meaty nature. All a poll would do for that one is slow down the page.

As for "who is online", lots and lots and lots of message boards do that. Boards based on phpBB do that for example. I was just in one. Hmm. Same basic effect you are going for, I think. It does change posting styles.

'16 Goals:

I think polls can be fun. Not sure if it would encourage drive by posting. At least it provides an easy way to tally the votes. I've been thinking about how best to add it lately. I'm not against it and will try to add it when I have time.

As for displaying whether a member is logged in or not, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. It has a stalker-ish feel to it.

Polls will lead to (even) more of the posts that the OP doesn't participate in, and isn't really interested in the answer. Such as...

Do You Think Running is Painful?

Actually, I posted that thread & have been reading all of the answers. I was just curious about others' opinions & experiences. I don't have more to say about the subject than I said in the original post. Sorry for not commenting on your comment; I didn't know it meant that much to you.